Guest author: Therese Creed

At the moment, the Rural Lit genre is growing incredibly fast. It seems every month there is not one, but two or three new releases finding their way onto the shelves, everywhere.

Today marks the in-store date for debut author Therese Creed. Her novel Redstone Station is published by my publishers, Allen and Unwin and Therese’s call story is much the same as my own, after being picked up through the Friday Pitch initiative.

Therese Creed

Here’s her story:

Therese: Basically, when I wrote the book I was just acting on a sudden whim. I had been writing opinion pieces for the paper, but they were depressing me and I was yearning to write something joyful. I suppose I had also had the idea of writing a novel simmering in my subconscious since coming to live on a cattle property.

When I was riding on the National Trail in 2003/04, I was sending letters (on paper), detailing my daily adventures, home to my family. My Dad would then type them up and send them out as emails. These emails ended up having quite a large following, and the fact that people enjoyed what I wrote really excited me. Strangely, the thing that spurred me into action was my reading of a very bad contemporary novel just after Easter 2011. So over the next week, whenever a weird or novel thing happened on the property and I was the only one around to witness it, I wrote it down. Then a few lines began to turn into a few paragraphs, and a few paragraphs into chapters. Then it just took off. The chapters started clocking up, in no particular order and it was time to conjure up a main characters.

Then the characters got into my head and took control of the story. I got to know them so well that I knew how they would act in certain situations. Their voices began to plague me throughout the day when I was trying to do other work. They would talk at me incessantly, sometimes more than one of them at a time. I would be doing something with my sons, mundane housework, jobs outside with the animals or cooking, and the voices would be nagging me with what they wanted to happen to them in the story. The pressure that the voices of my characters put on me, meant that I got a great deal done in a short time. I am usually such a procrastinator and find it so hard to be organised, but with these voices driving me, I found that by the time I got to the computer I night, I was ready to explode with words, my face would burn with a blood rush to the head, and the only thing that slowed me down was my two-fingered typing.

Each day unusual things happen at our place, it is a 17 000 acre cattle property, and suddenly they seemed to be happening with relevance to the story. We had a fire to fight, it became a chapter, a coal company came to do exploratory drilling in our very best paddock, it went in, I found a cow with a stuck calf that had been partly eaten by dingoes, in she went. Old envelopes, shopping dockets in the car and even the back of my hand on occasions were used to jot down ideas, to be collected and written up by night in the dark (we have no screens so lights go off on dark if we want to avoid a house full of bugs). Looking through the swarm of insects gathered on the computer screen the daily events were woven into Alice’s life as well. Often one sentence would spark off a whole new chain of events in the story, It was so exciting, I just couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen next! Sometimes the characters would surprise me. Written dialogues in the book were rarely pre-planned, I would start writing a conversation wondering what they were going to say, and even argue with them in my head, when they insisted on saying something that I didn’t like, or that created a whole lot more work for me.

When I was contacted by Allen and Unwin after submitting my manuscript to ‘Friday Pitch’ I still didn’t expect anything to eventuate. When they accepted it for publication, I was so dumbstruck that I asked my brother in law (A barrister) to check it all out for me to make sure it wasn’t someone fraudulent, pretending to be a publisher, trying to steal my work! It was just too good to be true.

I loved every minute of creating Redstone Station and I am enjoying the next novel and my new set of imaginary friends just as much!

Comments 13

I’ve read Refstone Station and absolutely loved it. The characters are so realistic just loved it. Please do a follow on book so we can see what happens with Alice and Jemery. Keep writing your book is fantastic 🙂 .

Dear Therese, We recently finished reading REDSTONE STATION and it’s becoming harder to pick a favourite author now, there’s just so many of you great girl writers!! Love the fact of how so many are involved in our rural industry and write about it, keep it up, what a change to 50 years ago. Fond regards Noel & Jan HILL.

Redstone station sucked my day right in. I have finished because I coud not stop reading. Well done,iI look forward to more from you. I have posted a recommendation on my Facebook wall. Thanks for the enjoyment. Betty G

I have read both books and love them. the charactors and storyline is just so real. It’s a true account of everyday Australian life in the bush. Also love the real life issues and i agree also that if it’s included in the story it has a huge impact on readers, especially those who havent lived in the bush or experienced country values and the difference in outlook, even the childrens charactors are absolutely true to life.
It’s a true joy to read a book that you can totally see, hear and feel a connection with your own upbringing in Rural Australia, it is afterall a unique lifestyle and you have nailed it perfectly

Please write more,,, I can’t wait to read all your future books for many years to come.
I wait in anticipation….

I taught Therese when she was about seven years old and she was a great writer even then. One story she wrote, about the buttons in her Mum’s sewing basket , remains in my mind still. The buttons almost came to life! I’m so excited to hear that she’s now a published author and can’t wait to read the books. Well done and congratulations Therese!

I have read both books and fell in love with all charactors and have read Charlotte’s creek 4 times, I haven’t had a favorite book or author until last yr when i started reading Redstone Station then Charlotte’s Creek thankyou for such amazing books ?.

Hi Therese Creed and everybody too my is pat not girl or woman but a man who has lived outback farm and worked outback too and came back home to victoria country but i could live country any more i was a broken the drought almost kill me and lost everything i had including a marriage too but now i am remarried with a lovely lady too love all courty books written by anyone who can write about country or the outback i read lots books written by lovely ladies who can put pen to paper or a computer these days and i cry laugh sook took when sam died at redstone station i had go outside talk to my four legged baby who is a girl dog who got smack on the nose today for the first time in 9 years that she has been with she travel the highways from melb to sa to nsw to qld too she is company for been a truck driver that is not what i wanted i wanted to stay farming as i said before it nearly kill me drought was too long ten years here and goverment did not want help and when they tried too they only wanted give you a loan anyway the book was great i felt it all .all the way through the book i pick it last night about 9 pm read it till 7am then slept till two pm pick it up again and fished it 12 am monday 18/7/2016 i love everything country even i live melb city suburbs i bush as much as can i not been for a log time due a work injury it taken me 12 months to get back on my legs and that is with one crutch now on good days i love reading i have many books i have read as i cannot count them as to many over couple 100 there are five country lady writers from bottom end to the top end of australia all of you are great i really enjoy them one i have read the book i can not pick up again even it years i start to read it i will know if read it or not my is not sharp as it was but still know if read it please keep the good books coming i will always look for more of them to read i might cry yell ,laugh with them more again but sam i really felt him in my heart to go out like he did was the only to go, doing some thing that you loved i don’t want to die in the truck on my front porch looking at hills water birds and with my either old or new four legged baby dog girl or boy i love them as if they are children you teach you hold them cuddle them reward them and tick them of when they get into trobble too again thanks for your lovely work in the books please keep doing it you really don’t know how many readers ther are reading your books some times the book could be second hand too

Have not read Redstone Station and so glad there is one more of Therese’s book to enjoy as i have just read Charlotte’s Creek and fell in love with the Her book . Now living in rural Victoria on a farm but have lived in Central Qld. She captures the heart of the never silent bush the cattle lowing(bellowing) sheep especially in lambing season can be heard at all hours and the natures delights the endless songs of the magpies here so numerous who roost around the house trees and unlike Qld. squawk all night long, hearing night jars owls and by day the screeching of passing cockatoos, the flocks of gala’s then all the tiny birds flitting through the grass and low bushes, stealing the chickens feed. The bloody foxes killing new born lambs The sorrow when some poddy has to be put down as not quite right a little birth defect. loosing stock to snake bites. Lost two this last year. The joy of watching spring bushes flowering before it all turns brown and dry with the summer scare of bush fires especially after a good wet when the grasses are so abundant. The hard yakker of farm life the home garden she caught it all. The farms being sold of the old whose family do not wish to continue this hard life so often to foreign investors or split into smaller farms. the battles with the government policies who do not seem to have a true handle on life of a farmer.